A Battle Of Triple Ice & Time
by uxlsart
Summary: This is a Graytear/Lyoray FanFiction which holds angst. It will have 2 routes for each ship in certain parts of the story (it is your option to choose which route, or both routes if you want). Warnings: for Route 2, there will be Yaoi/Bara, while for Route 1 there will be hetero mature content as well. This is my second FanFiction ever so I'll try my best. Thank you for your time.
1. Flashback

**Narrator POV**

* * *

 _Everyone was mortified by the sound the ground was making. Rocks were falling even from the air. It was amusing to see considering how deserted the land looked. The land looked as if it was going to split in a million pieces. All of this mess was created by the one and only Zeref. Every guild has gathered up here to fight against him and his newest creations despite loosing their lives in the process. We can see right on the center, something that might make a drastic change into the future of three particular individuals._

 _At the moment, it is seen that Gray trying to do a very familiar stance he did in the past. Ultear runs faster than Racer ever could, trying to push Gray into a different direction._

 _"YOU KNOW THAT IF YOU PULL THROUGH WITH THIS, IT WILL BE A SLAP TO MY MOTHER'S FACE! AT LEAST IF NOT FOR YOUR SAKE, OR MINE, DON'T DO IT FOR HERS!" Said Ultear trying to reach Gray. Gray looks at her back and just grins and smirks._

 _In the mean time, Lyon drops to his knees in a shock and starts to shout._  
 _"I WILL NOT LET YOU DO THIS TO YOURSELF... I DON'T EVEN CARE HOW MANY OTHER PEOPLE WILL HAVE TO SACRIFICE, I WILL NOT LET YOU DO IT"_

 _"Sorry I made up my mind" Says Gray as he winks looking at both Ultear & Lyon respectively. "You will both be fine..."_

 _All you could see afterwards was a light blue light covering the area. Both Lyon & Ultear left out disheartening screams._


	2. Prologue

Meredy is sitting in a chair next to Ultear's hospital bed. Gray is standing at the entrance of the room while Porlyusica is serving a nice home-cooked meal for the three and afterwords takes off.

"So how exactly is her condition right now?" Gray says with his arms crossed.

"Can't you see? She's close to dying." Meredy says in a very hostile tone.

Gray rolls his eyes and snaps. "There's no need to throw hostility at me ok? I care about her just as much as you do..." He then thinks to himself: _"Maybe even more so..."_ He then tries to keep it together and thinks about the fact that Meredy was indeed raised by Ultear so this is clearly affecting her more than himself, and that he needs to stop talking out of his ass. "I'm just glad she's a sleep so that she doesn't see me react like this..."

Meredy glances at Gray with a hopeless stare. "There is no hope. It will happen. And I wont be able to stop it..." Tears start to come out of her pink orbs.

"There's always hope when you're still breathing in Earthland." Gray affirms Meredy while heading to the entrance again. He slightly turns his head over his back to look at Meredy. "I simply just don't understand... She still has a lot of time left she could use to live life to the fullest. Why on Earthland is she spending it like THIS!? What is the purpose!? For once I simply want to see her happy. TRULY happy..." Gray then takes off.

Meredy just keeps her hopeless stare and constantly switches her gaze to either Ultear or the ground.  
Ultear suddenly "wakes up".

"Mom are you ok- -wait wait wait wait, were you pretending to be asleep?" Meredy gives out a suspicious stare.

"I did" Ultear giggles. "I wanted to hear what Gray was going to say without him thinking I would be listening. I have to say I'm not disappointed in the slightest. Quite flattered actually." Ultear says as she smiles.

"You have a different look in your face I haven't seen before mom... Do you have a plan in mind?" Meredy says while she holds a super confused expression.

"Indeed. You will see." Ultear affirms. Then she thinks to herself _"What Gray said was right, why am I spending the rest of my life just rotting away instead of fully living it. I want to be able to enjoy whatever is left of it. For once I simply want to live."_

After Meredy left to continue working at the guild, Ultear created a completely solidified projection of her younger self, while her real body becomes completely unconscious, almost as if she was playing a VRMMO.

"Well dang don't I look great today?" She says smirking while looking at her "new" body. "It's time to start my last journey."


	3. Projecting Insecurities

**Ultear's POV**

* * *

I felt so alive in my new body. I just knew I needed to enjoy every single moment I had left. That's why I decided to come back to Crime Sorciere one last time. As I walk through the doors of the basement beneath "our" abandoned dungeon, Jellal, Meredy, & our new guildmates all stare at me in disbelief.

"Did you miss me?" I said to Jellal & Meredy as I winked and extended my arms. Both Jellal & Meredy came running towards me and Jellal tackled me in a hug. He seemed to have been awkward out by the gigantic hug he just gave me so he freaked out and retracted abruptly. Meredy knew I was alive that's just a fact, but she hasn't seen me in my projection. I worked extremely hard so that my projection completely resembles a real body, and honestly, I don't think they can tell whether it is or not.

"But I thought you were dead... Isn't that what you made us understand in that letter?" Jellal told me with a puzzled expression.

"Well I will be down that path someday, but for now, it's not the tim-" Meredy didn't let me finish my sentence and cut me off angrily.

"-YOU WERE CLOSE TO DYING! I WAS JUST WITH YOU AT PORLYUSICA'S THIS MORNING!"

"She was alive and you never told me?..." Jellal seemed very close to snap.

"I'm sorry Jellal, but I made an oath to her, that I wasn't going to reveal her condition. She sacrificed her lifetime indeed, but somehow she was able to keep a few years left of her life. I have no idea how she was able to obtain her younger self's body. None of this makes sense to me. She was an old lady close to death!" Meredy affirmed.

Certainly I wasn't going to explain every detail of the recent occurrence, so I decided to take Meredy outside and explain to her what happened. As I was leaving, I could hear the guildmates asking Jellal a lot of questions about my condition, which he wasn't able to give a proper response to, but that's ok, I will explain to him better, he just won't know that this is my projection that's all. I do understand he's able to create a projection himself, but once again, I worked very hard so that it would be impossible to notice whether or not this was my real body.

At sunset, Meredy got exactly the idea behind using my projection. She understood that I simply want to enjoy life and I took Gray's words seriously. Meredy yelled a couple of times out of frustration of having to lose me again but I assured her that when the time comes, I would've find my closure, and probably she could find hers as well. By that time, she will not be new to the impact life leaves us when we see a loved one sacrifice for the better good. We then decided to walk home from there.

It was then nighttime at my temporary place, yeah it's a cave, I know quite tacky but I mean, we're fugitives, I wanted the guildhall to operate in the dungeon, so YEAH. Anyway I cupped Meredy's face to give her a forehead kiss and sent her inside. I waited so that I could hear her snore, to then take off for a long walk. It was nighttime, the sky was beautiful with all those stars. The fresh breeze felt amazing hitting my face. I mean who wouldn't want to walk around with such a nice environment? As I proceed on my walk I hear a bunch of leaves ruffle. At first I simply thought it was a squirrel. Hey, lots of squirrels make a lot of noises at this hour, especially around the trees. Moments later, I was startled to hear as if something heavy just fell behind me. I turned around instantly to see that it was Gray. He was chewing on a golden apple leaning against the tree he jumped from. Once he got done taking his last bite he threw the remains on the ground. "That was my only meal today" He said smirking and walking towards me.

"Oh so it was you... Have you been following m-" I couldn't finish my sentence due to Gray spontaneously tackling me in a hug. It was different than how Jellal tackled me, it was more gentle, considering Jellal made me loose my balance somewhat, but it was more desperate considering Gray's grip. I could hear the sound of his breathing. He was short of breath that's for sure, almost as if he's seen a ghost and was trying to find comfort. Well technically speaking, he is seeing sort of a ghost. I felt something wet drop on my left shoulder, so I pushed Gray back and noticed that he was in tears.

"I have so many questions and I don't know where to start... But I've heard some of it while you talked with your guildmates..." He said quavering.

"Listen Gray I can explain but please bare with me..." I put my hands firmly on his shoulders and looked at him straight in his blue orbs, just to make sure he was listening.  
"I pretended to be asleep when you visited me today. I did listen to your last words before you took off, and I thought about them a lot. And you're right, why would I spend the rest of my life in a damn bed when I could be living it to the fullest?" I noticed that Gray smiled when I affirmed him I listened to what he said this morning, but afterwards he gave me the same hopeless look Meredy expressed when she was taking care of me at Porlyusica's.

"Sometimes I talk out of my ass... Probably because I hate accepting the fact that you sacrificed your life fo-" I didn't let him finish his sentence because I knew where this was going.

"-For everyone."

He then pushed my hands away from his shoulders.  
"YES BUT YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO! And what do you plan to do in such little time? Why would you need to make a projection of yourself in order to do whatever the hell it is you want to do?" His tone of voice was filled with anger, desperation, and frustration at the same time.

"Well that's rude..." I said giggling

"I'm not in the mood to joke around ok? I just don't understand why you? Out of all people why did it _HAVE_ to be _YOU_ to do this for "us""

"Precisely because of the fact I've harmed too many people Gray, imagine what it would be like to know that YOU are responsible for killing an entire village of people AND more..."

"TRUST ME I KNOW... THAT'S WH-"

"You were going to use the Lost Ice Shell spell." I took a pause and sighed. "Gray, you were simply forced to kill Juvia, and your anger towards what Zeref did to your hometown, family, and the people you cared for, blinded your mind with anger which is why you attempted to kill Natsu, thinking all your problems would be over once you defeated "END", but it's not like you always wanted to kill Juvia and Natsu or am I wrong? You were put in such circumstance. Me on the other hand..."

"You were also blinded by anger thinking your mother abandoned you. Stop demonizing yourself and take a look at the good in you for once."

"What good can I ever bring in a place like this..." I suddenly fall on my knees while my eyes water up. Due to my stubbornness, I do not let a single tear fall off and try to hold myself in place. Gray kneels down trying to make our eyes meet at the same level. He cupped my left cheek with his right hand.

"Look I'm sorry I was a jerk minutes ago, I was frustrated because I didn't want to loose you again. I think this is exactly what Meredy was trying to explain to you when she constantly asked you questions about your projection's abilities. Is your magic power going to be the reason why your lifespan will shorten even more? Due to the fact you're forcing your real body too much? And then you leave us even sooner? We already have enough with loosing you again..." I've never seen Gray shed waterfalls for tears. I kept looking down from there because if I took a look at him still I would break down, and that wasn't my intention.

"Yeah Meredy would be loosing a mother, but what would you be loosing?" I said still with my face facing down.

"I would be loosing someone I want to cherish" I looked up at him puzzled at his words. He gave me a straight look, wiped away his own tears, and slightly looked away.

"Gray... do you..?"

"I'm not sure... I've never been in love in order for me to tell."

 _"What the heck?"_ is what I was thinking in my mind. _"I wasn't even going to mention the word love. I was just going to mention the word feelings. This took a bigger turn than I expected. Ok how do I respond to this?"_ My brain didn't stop flaring with thoughts. I was sort of confused, flattered, I felt really strange. I was both pleased and scared at the same time so I just stood there still wide-eyed opened, scared to even breathe.

"How about this, let's forget I even stalked you, let's forget this conversation, let me actually help you to accomplish your closure. I can't be selfish either, and even though I hate the fact you're overusing your magic power, I understand you simply do not want the rest of your life to be spent in a complete boredom. So how about tomorrow, I take you out somewhere fun?" He says lending me a hand.

"Sounds good" I smile at him and let him help me back up. He then grabs my hand and walks me home. As soon as I get home he smiles at me peacefully and gives me a tight hug. I could feel his heart almost pop out of his ribcage, and I was scared he would be noticing mine. I even held my breath again out of fear, which he noticed and then chuckled.

"Just let the air out, there's no need to freak out" He said laughing while also walking backwards trying to be seductive and snapping his fingers along to his sentence. Then he hits his head against the first tree at the right side of the entrance of the path we just came from. I laughed hard at the fact he's such a dipshit. _"But I love that dipshit... wait... Love?"_ At that moment my mind just knew, that both happiness and despair, were awaiting me right by the corner.

I watched Gray walk into the distance, admiring how much he's built himself up these last couple of months. Once he disappeared into the darkness I went inside my cave so that I could catch some "sleep" and gain energy for tomorrow's possible events.


End file.
